What’s the Deal with Flying Carpets?

I’ve been keen on flying carpets, or magic carpets, as long as I can remember. I’ve no idea where the obsession came from. As a little girl, I used to spread a piece of material on the floor, teddy on one corner, biscuit tin on the other, and we’d go flying into the land of imagination on my magic carpet.

A lot of fairytales with Eastern influences mention flying carpets. I certainly read a lot of classic children’s books when I was younger, so it’s easy to see how tales like Aladdin, One Thousand and One Nights and so forth appealed to me. There was always something very magical and exotic about tales of the far east. Those magical, not to mention warm, countries seemed like another world compared to grey, rainy England!

I was also always fascinated by people who flew off to other worlds, although not necessarily on carpets. Some of my favourite children’s fantasy books were Enid Blyton ones. I don’t believe she’s that well-known outside the UK, but books like The Magic Wishing-chair and The Faraway Tree remained longtime favourites. Looking back now, Ms Blyton admittedly didn’t have the most sophisticated writing style, but her stories fired my imagination.

A little later in life, I discovered Diana Wynne-Jones. She has an incredible imagination and her fantasy stories are like no other. The particular book I had a fascination with was Castle In The Air, which featured flying carpets heavily. Does a floating castle sound familiar? That’s because the book is a sequel to Howl’s Moving Castle, now a popular anime film.

And so, finally, I’ve written about flying carpets myself. I’ve taken quite a practical approach to them, rather than a mystical one. The magic carpets in my world are the equivalent of cars in this world. They require complicated magic to create them, and my protagonist struggles with this. If you want to know more and find out what happens to her, you don’t have long to wait!

I always loved Enid Blyton! But then NZ has lots of UK imports, so not surprising she was popular with us. I’m not off to hunt up Diana Wynne Jones- have seen her books before but never read them, and it sounds like that’s a terrible oversight! And I love your idea of magic carpets being just a normal part of life – sounds interesting!